Sponsored posts are the special articles designed to promote an advertiser's products in which a blogger earns money for posting them on their sites. These posts are either written by you or by the advertiser. These articles contain at least one contextual link provided by an advertiser. Alternatively, high ranking websites such as Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Digg are partnered with advertisers and act as an agent between companies and bloggers who post. Guest posts with intentionally discussing to a product as a solution to a topic, questions or a debate is another way to attract new customers on sales pages and it can generate very good earnings.

source: sponsoredreviews.com, pixabay.com

It is a well-structured idea applied in a different way compared to a conventional Affiliate and pay-per-click Programs.

Sponsored posts are preferred to generate legitimate income by many bloggers as it requires specific inputs. Even though placing a link inside an article is difficult to locate easily by a visitor, it sounds very natural to search engines and creates more value to it.

Getting a free Guest Post?

You may be offered a free post through your emails, contact us pages etc. on your blog. But, wait! It may be a sponsored post. Free guest posts requests must come from individual and not from businesses. So, don't be fooled and just post their content on your blog as it is.

Sponsored posts are mostly offered as a package (full article). You can put entire article as it is but being a blog owner you can modify it to make it from more individual prospectives. If you are rewriting the article, you can surely ask more money from an advertiser.

Sponsored posts are meant to be highly relevant to your blog topic. If an advertiser gets SEO boost through your sponsored post, they are likely to be benefited faster. That is the main function of it such as attracting traffic, boost page rank etc.You may also like "Create an attractive landing page for your Blogger blog"

How much to charge for Sponsored Posts?

Do not undersell yourself. If your blog has higher page rank, you can ask for more price offers for your sponsored posting. Using a calculative method it is something like adding your monthly visitors to the number of twitter followers you have and then dividing them with your Google PR rank will give a rough estimation of the value of your posts. Many top-tier sites are getting almost about $100 to as good as $5000 for a sponsored post depending on their monthly visits and page rank status. Mostly brands pay double to an advertising agency and give only half to blogger. That's sad, isn't it?As the blog ages, its PR authority raises and also its monthly visitor's traffic. If you have at least 5,000 monthly visitors and you are on PR2, PR3, PR4 and PR5 your rates shall go around 100$, 200$, 400$, 700$ respectively. As visitors go doubling, rates also go double and so on.

Additionally, following factors will decide how much to charge

The frequency of posting - How many posts you are going to make monthly?

Whether brand category is matching to your blog's niche perfectly.

Social exposure to the advertisers in addition to niche article.

Quality you will be delivering through your article.

Your overall reputation online.

Blog engagement - How many people actually read your blog.

How to Perform? Focus on small advertisers at firstIf you are new to sponsored posting, start with the small advertisers at first and build your portfolio and confidence.Focus on Quality rather than ratesYour basic aim must be to deliver your best to the advertiser in terms of convincing skills and depth of reach. Which will in return give you better confidence.Ask for advance paymentsIf you are serious about your time and quality delivery, you must ask for the payment in advance. This will give a positive impression to the advertiser and better relationship.Keep readers in mindAlways write keeping readers in mind. Constantly convince them why and how they can buy the advertised product. Writing in just selling perspective may not work well. Don't move off your website niche while looking for sponsored posts. This is very important as irrelevant advertising sponsored reviews will give negative impact on your current readers.

Keep it sound completely naturalAdd maximum 2 advertising links and include at least one non-paid legitimate linkLook for more work from them

If you have just delivered a right article and they appreciate it. Start asking them for more work in future by building contacts and emails.

Look for blog advertising agencies

If you do not want mess around thousand of advertisers and keep fighting for the rates, look for agencies. They will guide for getting relevant advertisers with best possible rates.

Follow the rules

Disclosure for the sponsored post is mandatory as per the FTC regulations. It says Bloggers who receive payments are deemed endorsers and must disclose material connections.

"This blog post was sponsored by Choozurmobile"

Alternatively, Google is very straight forward with bad SEO tricks and manipulations. Selling text links must be done in quite positive and suggested ways which include,

Putting a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tagRedirecting those links to an intermediate page which is away from search engines reach using a robots.txt